


Triggered

by Flip_the_table



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dave/Terezi Moirail, Lightly AU, M/M, Rose/Kanaya if you squint, Some Spoilers, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-13 04:32:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flip_the_table/pseuds/Flip_the_table
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dave deals with the after effects of... life. And his friends try to fix him, when he doesn't think he needs fixing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Current State of Affairs

Everything was black and swirling and everyone he ever cared about was dead or dying, screams filling the void. He couldn’t breathe and the blows and the pain were coming and he couldn’t handle it. His world was crashing down around him, and there was nothing he could do. He was completely, utterly, helpless. The screams started to die down, and for a moment he was happy. Then he realized that the screams were stopping because the people screaming were stopping. Those left alive were slipping away, and there were things hitting him, slicing him open, and he couldn’t stop them, and he couldn’t find his friends.  
  
So much screaming.  
  
And then there was just one voice screaming, and Dave realized that he was the only one screaming. He was alpha Dave; not trapped in a doomed timeline. And he needed to stop screaming. He took a shuddering breath, silencing himself, and hoped against hope that no one had heard him.  
  
He sat absolutely still, listening for footsteps in the echoing hallway of the meteor. When none came he took a deep breath, trying to calm down. He clutched at the sheets and turned, making sure his shades were on the bedside table next to him. In the dim light he could just barely make them out.  
  
That particular dream was reoccurring, but every time it happened it seemed fresh and new. Dave would wake up, sometimes screaming, sometimes not, and then fight back a mental breakdown. And every time it happened he lost a little ground in his war for mental stability.  
  
Everything got harder the longer he fought the dreams. In everyday conversations little things would set his mind reeling back, back to places and things that he wouldn’t share with anyone. He would see friends dying; he would feel a hundred deaths that he knew he hadn’t really felt. Because when he died it wasn’t him. It was a doomed Dave. He tried to remember that he wasn’t doomed, that he didn’t have to fight anymore. The war was over. The twelve trolls and the four humans shared the meteor as their home and everything was peaceful. Sure they would make plans for the future at some point, but the war was over.  
  
Every little joke or jab cracked his façade and his friends hadn’t seemed to notice at first (due to his impeccable control, he was sure), but now he thought they might be starting to. He had to fight harder. He had to keep his control. He needed to stop the dreams. Will them away. He would not let them break him. He would not be weak.  
  
He desperately needed help, but he would not acknowledge it. He didn’t need to burden his friends with such trivial concerns as nightmares. For all he knew they were suffering from worse things. They had injuries of their own to cope with. And really, the war was over, so he didn’t understand why he couldn’t just get over it.  
  
But all that was irrelevant. He just needed to calm down, get cleaned up, and get ready for a day of keeping his icy control together and being free from dreams. The dreams couldn’t come while he was awake. Sleeping had long since lost all of its appeal, but he knew he could only function for so long without sleep.  
  
So he only slept the bare minimum. He made comics, played video games, and messed around with his sword, trying to focus on one thing at a time. If he only focused on the immediate present nothing else could creep in.  
  
He stirred, releasing the bed sheets from his tight grasp and hauling himself out of bed. He wandered into the bathroom that had somehow already been in the meteor when they got here and washed his face off, focusing on making every movement normal, and relaxed, showing nothing.  
  
He returned to his room shortly after completing his normal morning activities and got dressed for a new day. Then he wandered around the meteor, not really expecting to run into anyone for a while. The meteor was large enough that any one of them could wander for hours and not find anyone. Because of this they had a couple places where they tended to congregate. Dave picked out the closest one from his mental map and walked toward it, focusing on every step and every turn.  
  
He wandered down the long hallways, steps echoing in his head, narrowing his life down to the next turn, the next step, the next breath. Here and now was the only important thing and here and now required a breath, and another, and another.  
  
He had to remember to keep breathing. When he focused too hard on that it seemed to become more and more difficult, like he was back in his dream being smothered by the screaming.  
  
He shuddered before he remembered where he was. He shrugged the feeling off, trying not to let his thoughts wander. The world spun a little and he wondered distantly if he had been breathing at all. A breath of air and another turn and he saw a group of trolls milling about with Rose and John. Jade was likely still asleep; even after the war was over she still slept a lot. He reasoned that her body was probably just used to it.  
  
“Sup.” He announced his presence in the room and watched as various trolls looked up. All at once they all started chattering at him, and he could not even begin to try to untangle what they were saying. Eventually most of them shut up and just let Rose do the talking. She started talking in her most sarcastic and roundabout way about a plan that suddenly was the purpose of their flight on the meteor.  
  
Last he’d checked he’d just signed up for a joy ride mixed together with maybe an opportunity to get his shit together, but he figured this was bound to happen. She kept talking and it started getting complicated, involving various timeline shenanigans. Dave just waited patiently for her to get to the point. She gradually explained that they were going to somehow end up in the session they created with the scratch, such that their guardians were now the players. So they would see them again, as children. John started chattering happily about getting to see his Dad and the trolls started to throw out questions about how the human system worked with ancestors.  
  
Dave froze. He would get to see his Bro again. His world seemed to spin in reverse, and for a moment he wondered if he’d accidentally used his time powers to turn the tables. After a moment he regained his bearings, not twitching a muscle at the pandemonium erupting around him.  
  
John, flipping quickly from one subject to another, sucked him into a meaningless conversation about how good John thought he was at his current choice of video game. Dave, of course, shot the banter straight back at him, denying his ability flat out. John challenged him to a game-duel and so, being a Strider, Dave had to accept.  
  
The two wandered away to John’s room where he had somehow (probably using an appearifier, Dave mused) gotten various gaming consoles and games. They started up, and Dave figured out along the way the rules to the simplistic game, while John chattered about how the game seemed to him like how Dave’s strife would be with his Bro, and oh wasn’t Dave so happy he’d get to see his Bro again? Dave remained impassive and button mashed, beating John into the figurative ground.  
  
John protested that he was distracted, and that Dave probably had the upper hand anyway from real life strife sessions of similar nature. Dave just gave him a small smirk and hit “Rematch.” John accepted and was silent while he tried to out button mash his best friend. John scored a particularly high difficultly move (oh the wonders of button mashing) and the game queued up into a small action sequence with Dave’s character taking a sword through the gut.  
  
The image was too familiar to be comfortable. Dave was in the past, looking down at his Bro, watching with a blank fascination at the blood pooling around Bro’s corpse. He couldn’t function; he couldn’t process the events. He just stood there, eventually falling to his knees next to Bro, trying to decide what the emotions were that were threatening to swallow him whole. Then Terezi was pestering him and he remembered that he was a Strider and Striders don’t lose their cool.  
  
So, he wouldn’t fall apart. The emotions swirled about, none of them coming to the forefront as a kind of dead coldness seeped into his mind. He was calm, calm like a Strider should be. But he couldn’t process everything and talk to Terezi at the same time, so he tried to make her go away. It seemed to work. He was alone. And he suddenly, desperately, didn’t want to be alone.  
  
He couldn’t accept the reality that lay in front of him, and he wanted to change it, but he knew that would be suicide. In fact he knew he probably had tried to change it, though where his dead bodies were was somewhat of a mystery.  
  
He dared a glance up from the morbid sight in front of him, scanning the area. There, behind the wall, a flash of red, a shock of blonde. He got up and wandered over towards it, impassively regarding the mound of his dead bodies. They were all him, all of them.  
  
Only then did he realize that he simply had to accept that Bro was dead and literally nothing he could do would change it. Not in the alpha time-line anyway. And living in a doomed timeline was living a mostly pointless life. He knew that much from what Davesprite had told him.  
  
Then John was yelling incoherently, and Dave wondered what had happened. And he was looking at a screen with a dead body of someone he didn’t recognize-oh, his character in the game. He’d lost. He’d been too distracted. His focus had been lost. He needed to keep his focus. He was a Strider, and he would not lose his cool.  
  
He played it cool, looking at John in an amused way, watching him freak out over the fact that he’d manage to beat Dave at a video game. Rose spoke up, and Dave almost jumped out of his skin. Of course that meant that he blinked behind his shades where no one could see. She was taunting John a little bit, saying it was a fluke win. John was protesting, saying that a win was a win and no one could argue with that.  
  
Everything was okay; everything was normal. Dave nodded slightly, which was conveniently timed with Rose implying he’d let John win. John immediately protested, to which Rose responded with a lengthy and only somewhat accurate explanation as to how it was ironic to lose horribly to someone who could never beat you if you were trying.  
  
John was yelling, agitated in a friendly, laughing, way. Jade walked in, looking at all of them sleepily and asking about food. They all realized they should probably have meal. Their days didn’t really make sense since they didn’t have a sun to judge the time by. They all operated on roughly the same approximation of a twenty-four hour period, but it was easy to lose track.  
  
They all picked up and moved as a group back to the room the trolls were in, creating food through the various means that the meteor offered. Dave was quiet, but he was usually quiet so the others didn’t seem to notice. He ate methodically, not tasting the food he put in his mouth. At one point Terezi dared him into rapping it out, so he whipped out some sick raps, getting Terezi off his case. She seemed a little bit too keyed into his emotional state for his tastes. He wondered how much about him she actually understood.  
  
The conversation made its way back to the end of their trip, now set to their guardian’s timeline. Jade got filled in on the latest news, and she was immediately chattering away with John, hypothesizing on the possible differences in their guardians, both because of the alternate timelines and because they would presumably be meeting them when they were still very young, not the adults they had grown up seeing them as.  
  
Various theories were thrown back and forth, some of them flavored by the trolls’ uniquely inaccurate view of human relationships, and Dave grasped after something else to focus on. He needed to focus on the present, but the present was a conversation about the past that he just could not deal with right them. He needed something else to think about.  
  
The conversation seemed stuck in one rut, and Dave knew he couldn’t try to change it without seeming odd. So he just focused on each individual word of the conversation, feeling specific words and phrases vibrate through his soul. John asked what he thought would be different and he gave some ironic response about maybe his Bro wouldn’t like smuppets and irony until they all got there and Dave ironically got him into irony.  
  
John seemed confused, which was the point really, and spent the next couple minutes trying to figure it all out. Rose tried to explain to John that the timeline wouldn’t really work that way; the people they were meeting weren’t actually their guardians as they knew them, so Dave’s Bro’s tastes would be irrelevant to Dave’s timeline and therefore it wouldn’t really be ironic for Dave to get him into those things.  
  
John, trying to follow Dave’s logic, tried to argue back about the fact that it could still be ironic because even if they weren’t exactly the same people, they were still the people they knew and loved as their guardians. Bro would be just as much Bro as John’s Dad would be Dad. Dave’s mind went back to his Bro, to their strife sessions, to the cuts and bruises and the anger and then Dave was shutting off that line of thought as emotions crashed over him.  
  
The conversation around him continued, oblivious of his emotional state. John, having abandoned his argument with Rose as a lost cause, asked him if he was excited to see his Bro again and if he thought Bro would be as cool as ever. Dave smirked and answered, “Of course. If his last name is still Strider then I’m sure that’s the case.”  
  
“What if it’s not?” Rose nudged him.  
  
“Then it will be the alternate timeline version of Strider and will still be Strider.” Dave replied.  
  
Jade looked a little confused and said, “Well is that the way it works? This whole thing is pretty confusing, but I’m happy I’ll get to see my Grandpa! Maybe I’ll even get to see Bec! Though I guess in an odd way I kind of am Bec. Will it be a paradox for me to be Bec and see Bec?”  
  
“Paradox space won’t complain any more than it does when I hang out with myself,” Dave quipped, finding the conversation easier to hang on to the further away it got from real plans and real events that may or may not even happen.  
  
“When I see Dad I wonder how I should react. Will he know who I am?” John wondered, looking at Rose.  
  
Rose answered, “It’s possible, but in the same way that they will be different from how we knew them, I imagine that if they know who we are they will have known us in some other way, possibly as their ancestors this time.”  
  
“That would be so weird,” Jade laughed, “Imagine my Grandpa seeing me as his Grandma!”  
  
“It won’t necessarily be simply reversed,” Rose demurred, “We could be cousins or even not related at all. Well, of course we are related, but that’s through paradox slime and they may not necessarily know about us or see us as relatives.”  
  
“Aww,” Jade frowned.  
  
“It’s similar to how you didn’t know you were John’s paradox sister and I didn’t know Dave was my paradox brother until the game,” Rose explained.  
  
“Well this just means it gets to be a dramatic meeting where they don’t necessarily even know what’s happening. It’s dramatic irony!” John gushed, starting to spew movie references.  
  
Dave tuned John out as soon as he started talking about movies. They would all be sitting there for quite a while debating about their respective guardians. He knew that and suddenly he was very tired. Things seemed to hit him with no warning anymore. He supposed he couldn’t just feel tired gradually; no, that would make it far too easy for him to keep cool and not fall asleep in the middle of a conversation. Dave tactfully withdrew from the conversation and moved himself back to his room to work on his comics.  
  
He honestly didn’t know if anyone other than Terezi even followed his website anymore, since he wasn’t sure if anyone else could even see it. He wondered if the internet worked through paradox space. Rose’s walkthrough guide had seemingly made it to the trolls, but he wasn’t sure if that was some special power Rose had manifested early on or something.  
  
His site was teeming with new art work. In fact, it wasn’t really his site at all, though he tended to just think about it that way for simplicity’s sake. It was originally his Bro’s. He’d hacked the password (it was very ironic, of course) and kept it going. It was a remnant of the past and it filled the endless hours the meteor offered.  
  
The website brought back all the good memories, all the laughter that wasn’t voiced over comics that were so bad they were funny. He cranked out a couple comics, dedicating them in his mind to his Bro and to all the good times. The comics were extra bad, just for him.  
  
Terezi had seemingly logged on and was making a couple of response comics that she was posting as reactions to his new comics. He found it ironic that he had just left the room she was in without talking to her, and that they had both then proceeded to log online and talk via pictures. Which were “worth a thousand words” after all, so perhaps they were saying more online than those chatterboxes back the room? Dave smirked a little at the perfect irony of it all, and made an extra bad comic extra quickly to counter one of Terezi’s particularly good, by which of course he meant bad, comics.  
  
The jokes flew thick and fast, with a little memory of Bro imbedded in each and every one of them. Every night spent hanging out with video games and pizza had a note stuck in the sick beats he turned on. Every day he came home from school exhausted and frustrated to find apple juice on his desk had a little mark in a comic. Every thought and little gesture that Dave could remember of the good times with Bro came piling out into art.  
  
Terezi, seemingly no longer worried, logged off. Though why she was worried (or was it how she knew she should be worried) confused Dave, but he didn’t really need an answer to that particular mystery.  
  
Really, her mixture of senses was a more confusing and demanding mystery that apparently just wasn’t going to get solved.

\--

Dave stumbled to his bed, completely exhausted. He had spent several hours working with his sword after logging out of his comic site. His theory was that if he was too tired to dream, maybe he would be too tired to have nightmares.  
  
He was wrong. Bro had him slammed up against a wall and there was searing pain in his ribs that was just completely irrelevant in comparison to the searing pain in his mind. His emotions were swallowing him whole and he just couldn’t understand what he’d done to make Bro mad this time. He was drowning in a sea of emotions, anger and sadness fighting and causing the waves to crash over the rocks of his mental stability, wearing them down gradually, so gradually.  
  
But he wouldn’t cry. He would keep his Strider cool. He probably deserved whatever was coming anyway. He hadn’t been careful enough, hadn’t been ironic enough. He needed to remember to watch every word, every facial tic. A smile here and a frown there and nothing here or the card house comes tumbling down, turning to cement on the way. The stability gone from it all, it leaves a searing weight that just won’t move.  
  
He couldn’t breathe, and he really didn’t care.  
  
He had failed. He wasn’t good enough. His face just wouldn’t seem to obey him. He couldn’t keep it under control. He needed better control. Tears threatened to spill over and the shades were yanked from his face and dashed to the ground.  
  
Now he really was open, vulnerable, and defenseless. Bro would have none of that. The blows started, the lecture coming out half screamed. The room was shaking. Or maybe that was Dave’s vision; he wasn’t sure.  
  
He tried to just keep looking at Bro. Look at Bro and don’t cry. Don’t twitch a muscle. The world was revolving too slow and too fast and time just wouldn’t agree with him in which direction it should be moving. The words cut and cut and cut. He knew he wasn’t good enough. He was sorry.  
  
He was so sorry. He had slipped up. He had let himself be happy. He couldn’t do that. He had to watch every word. He didn’t deserve to be happy if he couldn’t even keep control over himself.  
  
Just as the ice started to seep into his veins, freezing his mind and his body, it was over. Bro was turning and walking away, leaving Dave standing there staring defiantly at his back. He had not cried. He had not. He would not.  
  
The door slammed shut and he lost it. He couldn’t control it. The ice cracked and the waves were back, trying to drag him out to sea, the weight crushing him and pulling him down. He was drowning, and he couldn’t breathe. And he cared.  
  
He wanted so, so badly not to care. He couldn’t stop it. The sobs started, coming out choked and muffled. Not breathing was better; anything was better. Dave held his breath; he wouldn’t break down. He wouldn’t do it. Another muffled sob escaped him, and he heard Bro walk past his doorway. But he didn’t come in.  
  
He never did. And the next day there was apple juice on his desk, and their strife session on the roof was much shorter than usual. Dave accepted it all, watching each word, watching every emotion, and he seemed like he was okay. He seemed to be getting the hang of it.  
  
And then he relaxed. He thought maybe he deserved to be happy. So the screaming came back. He couldn’t be happy. He said one word wrong again. One word was the trigger. All it took was one word for the reminder that he didn’t deserve to be happy to come back.  
  
Dave woke up in a cold sweat and promptly began cussing himself out in his head. Bro was gone. Dead and gone and he wasn’t coming back. He wasn’t there anymore. None of those feelings were true. It was okay to be happy occasionally.  
  
As long as he watched every word he said. Insult no one; give no one an opening to attack you. Keep your cool. Keep your calm. Dave would do all this. And maybe, just maybe, he would earn the right the happiness.  
  
Dave sighed and rolled over, happy that the dreams hadn’t been as bad this time. Maybe today would be a good day. He closed his eyes, hoping to get some more rest.  
  
Bro haunted his dreams, flitting around the edges, a constant reminder of his need for control. And he woke up feeling dirty.  
  
How could he think that way about Bro? He had raised him, given him everything he ever had. He had taught Dave how to survive in the world. He loved his Bro. Any negative feelings were just him being ungrateful. Why couldn’t he just love Bro like any other person loved their family?  
  
He couldn’t feel that way anymore. It hadn’t been nearly as bad as he was making it out to be. He didn’t have a right to feel that way. It was so much worse for other people. He had a kind, loving Bro; how could he possibly complain about anything? His Bro was just trying to teach him a lesson.  
  
He just hadn’t learned fast enough. He hadn’t been good enough. He sat up, clawing at his sheets, trying to get untangled. He had to fight the urge to punch a wall, just to feel something. He just wanted to physically hurt so he didn’t have to deal with the mental pain. He needed to punish himself for his horrible thoughts. The emotions were overwhelming him and he just wanted some pain to bring some focus into his life. He stared fixedly at a point on the opposite wall.  
  
But no. He would not go there. That would be a cry for help, a crack in his control. He would be slipping up again, only worse this time. It wouldn’t be a wrong word; it would be a wrong action. It would be horribly selfish of him.  
  
His Bro had spent his time raising Dave so that Dave would be a good person and do all the things Bro wanted him to do. Not so he could block out the world with pain. Not so he could avoid all his issues and break, dragging other people in to pick up the pieces.  
  
Dave couldn’t let himself shatter. That would be spitting on everything Bro had done for him. He had tried so hard. Bro had worked every job he could get, kept a roof over his head, shown him the way to act, and above all had raised him. He’d been the guardian where his parents had been lacking. He hadn’t abandoned him. And Bro could have. He could have, but he didn’t.  
  
Dave wasn’t even Bro’s responsibility. Dave needed to repay Bro, and there was only one way he knew how to do that. He would be perfect. He would say every word just right, do everything just right, be everything just right. He would have the perfect grades; he would be good at sports; he would be the cool, unbreakable kid. He would learn control.  
  
It didn’t matter if that meant he didn’t sleep; if it meant he was friends with people he didn’t even like; if it meant he had to suck up to teachers. None of that mattered. He would keep Bro from ever being angry again.  
  
He tried and he tried and he tried. But nothing was good enough. Nothing he could do could keep Bro happy. Bro would come home happy, so happy, for a while. Then there would be that slip up. Always that slip up. One little trigger word and that would be it.  
  
After a while he felt like maybe he was doing it just to egg Bro on. He’d snap because he needed Bro to hurt him; because he needed the pain to remember who he was. It became something he feared and hated with his entire being, but that he somehow always came back to. It must be that on some sick level he wanted it. Something was wrong with him. He needed to just stop making Bro mad.  
  
Dave just couldn’t understand why he didn’t seem to be able to grasp the simple concept that he did not want to make Bro mad ergo he should just not make Bro mad.  
  
It was so simple.  
  
He deserved it, he knew that, but sometimes he had to think that he just didn’t understand what it had been that particular time. That time when Bro stood there and screamed at him, ripping him to shreds without touching him. Dave didn’t know what it was this time. He honestly didn’t know.  
  
And the cold had come back. That wonderful, beautiful cold started to seep into his brain, freezing everything in its wake. In some corner of Dave’s mind not yet frozen he wondered if this was how normal people were supposed to be, and all along he’d just been messed up. Bro had just been trying to fix him right?  
  
And everything was beautiful. His mind was cold and numb, and the words Bro was saying didn’t matter anymore. He’d achieved true cool-kid status. Even his mind was cool. He felt something snapping in the back of his mind, but he ignored it. Bro screamed louder for a bit, then tapered off and left.  
  
This time when Bro walked by Dave’s room afterword, Dave wasn’t crying. He was calm. He was completely calm and everything in the whole world made sense. Everything was in focus, and he could finally breathe.  
  
He just sat there, taking in the world. Everything was beautiful. He noticed things he’d never noticed before. He stared at the wall and noticed how the paint was chipping at the spot where he had punched the wall the one and only time he’d ever lost control enough to punch the wall just to feel pain.  
  
It had been every bit as much of a relief as he thought it would be, but he would never do it again. After the relief had worn off it had been that much worse because now he had justified Bro’s anger. He had been weak.  
  
All that seemed kind of silly now. He should have just reached for this place in his mind long ago. Everything was calm and logical and beautiful. Needless things like emotions were sealed away in the ice. He pushed them away, not wanting to deal with them.  
  
He had gone to school the next day completely calm. He had understood everything, made all the right social gestures, said all the right things. And he’d come home to his Bro and said all the right things then too.  
  
It was the best time of his life.  
  
Gradually though, the ice seemed to thaw. It wore thinner and thinner. Dave’s desperation to keep it only wore it away faster, and Dave didn’t know what to do. The feelings were coming back, and the feelings were what caused him to say the wrong things. Things like hope and silly happiness caused him to speak before he thought and that was when the screaming came back.  
  
And look at that. Dave sighed and got up, throwing the sheets messily on the floor. That particular memory was so beautiful. He wished he could bring the cold back. Though, Bro wasn’t here now. He supposed he’d probably gotten sloppy. He wondered if his Bro from the alternate timeline would scream at him like his Bro had. He wondered if he’d hurt him. Finally physically hurt him, and he wondered if the pain being physical would be as much of a relief as it used to be.  
  
It had been a relief; the physical pain finally justified his anger at his brother. Society would agree that guardians shouldn't hit their wards, right? Except that society would say it depended on how much. After all, some of it was just to teach them a lesson. Maybe Bro was just teaching him a lesson. And Bro had taught him not to listen to society anyway. So, in the end, maybe the physical pain wasn't actually helpful. It would be for a while, then he would realize that, just like everything else, it was probably his fault.  
  
It also had the initial minus of being physical pain compounded with the mental pain. He just couldn't seem to do anything right. It let him focus on it and nothing else. It was only a relief for a little bit, but for some reason he still sought it out as if it would bring him relief.  
  
Dave shook his head clear of these thoughts, thinking it would be bad if people started noticing how spacey he was being. He wandered around the meteor after getting new clothes, not really expecting to see anyone. There really wasn't much to do on the meteor, which resulted in everyone picking up bizarre hobbies and calming down from the initial panic of the game. Everyone had been on a hair-trigger, snapping out weapons at the first sign of anyone, when they first came to the meteor. Now, though, the first assumption when seeing or hearing someone was that they were a friend rather than an enemy.  
  
The trolls seemed to have their heads on as straight as it seemed it was possible for their race, and the other three humans seemed the same way. But then again so did he, and he was relatively sure that he would not fall under the category of mentally stable at the moment. He figured that lying to himself wasn't going to help anything in that department, so, yeah, he would admit to himself that he was losing the battle for his sanity. However, he wondered if any of the other three humans were having problems, too. He had no real way of knowing, but he was curious nonetheless.  
  
He also wondered exactly how much time had passed since he went to sleep. Time had lost a lot of its meaning to him, but it would have provided a perspective on how long it had been since he had seen his friends. Then again it was possible they'd gone to sleep, too. He decided to go back to the room he had been in, hoping that the buzz about potentially seeing their deceased guardians would have died down.  
  
Rounding the corner brought the room into view, and he stepped inside. The room was empty at the moment, so he just fiddled with random thing, messing up the appearifier and such, wondering what would appear if he picked random coordinates. He started it up and within a brief span of time a... pumpkin had appeared. He didn't know what to do with a pumpkin, so he just left it there for the next person to deal with.  
  
"Dave?"  
  
Startled, Dave whipped around, reaching for a sword he no longer carried. Taken aback at Dave's reaction, John stepped into the room, looking at Dave curiously. Dave reigned in his reflexes, telling himself sternly to be cool and not freak out every time someone talked to him. "Sup, John."  
  
"Almost everybody wandered off; I think they went to sleep. You just wake up?" John asked.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Hey, you seemed kinda quiet earlier. You just excited about seeing your Bro?"  
  
"Something like that," Dave answered, walking to a seat and sitting down tiredly. He'd managed to get sleep, but it seemed as though it hadn't made him any less tired.  
  
"Maybe you should go get some more sleep if you're that tired," John teased.  
  
"I don't need it," Dave quipped, "I could stick kick your butt in any video game."  
  
"You are NOT challenging me to another duel so soon after your defeat?" John jumped up, yelling dramatically.  
  
Dave smirked, realizing with some part of his brain that the days had really started to get repetitive. They all tended to do the same things day-in and day-out.  
  
"Dave?" John asked when Dave didn't immediately answer.  
  
Dave looked blankly in his direction, having forgotten what John had asked. He'd spaced out when John started talking, thinking about how back before the game he and his brother had also tended to do the same thing every day.  
  
"Actually I kind of think you should go back to sleep. You're being spacey, which is a first for you," John said uncertainly.  
  
"Maybe," Dave allowed, letting his head fall onto his hand, elbow resting on the table.  
  
John looked shocked. Dave smirked a little, enjoying having caught him off-guard but blocking out that the reason John was surprised was that Dave had let his cool-kid mask slip just a little.  
  
Dave blanked out again, and when reality came back into focus John was inches from his face, shaking his shoulders a little bit. "Dave. Dave. Dave? Hey, Dave, are you alright?"  
  
"Yeah," Dave responded, brushing Johns hands away, "I think I'll go get some more sleep after all."  
  
"I'll walk you," John offered, looking worried. "You aren't getting sick, are you?"  
  
"Nah, man, I'm fine," Dave offered, "I'm just tired."  
  
"Alright." John agreed, though he didn't look convinced.  
  
Dave hauled himself out of his char, thinking idly that he had actually gotten a lot of sleep recently. When he hadn't been getting any sleep he'd been fine, but now that he was sleeping he was spacey. For a moment he thought that maybe sleep was the problem, then he just concluded that the lack of sleep was catching up with him. He walked in the direction of his room, seeing John fall into step beside him silently.  
  
Wait a minute. Silently? Since when was John silent? "John? You're awfully quiet. You okay?"  
  
"Yeah," John glanced at him sideways, "Just a bit worried about you."  
  
"Don't worry, John. I'm fine."  
  
"Of course you are." There was no inflection in John's voice when he said that, and Dave had to wonder how much John was piecing together in his mind. He wondered if his being spacey just now could really have triggered John putting all of Dave's little slip-up together to see the big unstable picture that was Dave.  
  
Dave's door came into view, relieving Dave of any need to continue the conversation. Dave went in, throwing back an off-hand, "'Night."  
  
"Sleep well," John answered, turning around to leave.  
  
And though Dave couldn't see it after he closed his door, John turned to head in the direction of Rose's room. He'd suddenly realized that Dave had been slipping up a lot recently, and he knew that if anyone could help him figure out why, it would be Rose. Dave wouldn't answer his questions so it was pointless to ask him, but Rose would have theories and would start observing Dave after he brought his concern to her.  
  
Rose was not completely surprised to find John at her door, asking her about Dave. She'd wondered if he was alright ever since they'd all made the meteor their home, but Dave was extra careful around her. John listed off things he'd begun to notice, and she pulled out her notebook labeled "DAVE: the why's and how's".  
  
Meanwhile Dave climbed back into bed and face planted into his pillow.


	2. Karkat Happens

The next day everyone except Dave was hanging out in one room, still talking about meeting the human's guardians. Karkat asked John why Dave was the only one not there and John replied "I think he's getting sick, so he's probably still asleep."

"Sick? From what? We haven't been near any germs that would get him sick. Are you humans that weak?" Karkat asked, not yelling for once.

"I don't know, maybe it's some after-effects of the game," John shrugged.

Karkat looked at him skeptically and went looking for Dave to berate him for getting sick over nothing. He was still determined to make Dave his Kismesis and he was convinced that all he had to do to achieve that was make Dave hate him. Which, while true, was turning out to be more difficult than Karkat had expected. Dave seemed to not even really notice his existence (which just made Karkat hate him more).

Finding Dave's door, he wrenched it open without knocking, expecting to find Dave fast asleep. What he found, however, was Dave, shirt half-off, seemingly in the process of changing. Karkat paused for a half-second, unsure if it was inappropriate for him to see humans without their shirts on or not. He started to close the door just to be sure when the Dave moved slightly as if to cover himself and Karkat saw scars running across the entirety of Dave's chest.

Surprised into motionless, Karkat stared silently. "Dude, at least let me finish changing. What do you want anyway?" Dave pulled his shirt the rest of the way on, pulling at it to make sure it settled correctly.

Regaining his thought-process, Karkat started yelling, "JOHN SAID YOU WERE GETTING SICK. HOW DID YOU GET SICK WHEN YOU HAVEN'T BEEN NEAR ANY GERMS OR ANYTHING? ARE YOU THAT WEAK AND PATHETIC? HUH? MAYBE YOU AREN'T EVEN SUITED TO BE MY KISMESIS, STRIDER."

"Whoa, dude. I'm not getting sick. And I don't want to be your kis-whatever, so good." Dave brushed past Karkat, headed for the others, eager to get away from Karkat and hoping that he hadn't seen his chest. He didn't think he had, but Karkat had paused like he was surprised by something, so he wasn't sure. Even if he had, though, Dave figured extensive scarring was probably common among trolls with as violent as they were, so it was probably fine.

\--

Later that day everyone was heading out to do their own thing, until it was just John, Rose, and Karkat left in the room.

"HEY" Karkat yelled, though there was no need, "ROSE, JOHN. HUMANS."

"Yes?" Rose replied calmly while John simply looked up in acknowledgement.

"I thought your race wasn't overly violent?" Karkat asked, lowering his voice to a more appropriate volume.

"Well, we and we aren't." Rose explained. "We have a lot of wars and bombs and things, but there isn't that much violence in small groups, usually. We try to stop it when there is."

"So you humans haven't been through extreme violence? Before Sburb, I mean." Karkat asked, looking at her oddly.

"No, I don't think we'd gone through much violence at all." Rose stated, "We all had strifes with our guardians, but they wouldn't actually hurt us."

"So what would you think if there was a human of your approximate age with old, completely healed wounds all over?" Karkat asked.

John's and Rose's attention both snapped sharply to Karkat. "Why?" Rose asked, looking worried, "That would be very bad. If they looked like they were gained over time I would think that someone close to them, maybe even their guardian, had inflicted them. Which in our society is very bad. If they were all from one incident I'd say there was some kind of horrible accident like a fire or car crash."

Karkat looked at her, thinking. "Is a guardian hurting their ward common?"

"No!" John stood half-way up, trying to will the topic away, "That's horrible and should never happen!"

Karkat was silent, even after Rose re-iterated her question, "Why?"

After a moment the troll simply got up and left, leaving Rose and John very confused and slightly worried.

"Why do you think he wanted to know?" John asked Rose.

"Maybe he's been researching humans." Rose answered, though the answer was clearly not what she was thinking. Not wanting to think too hard about it, John accepted the answer, and wandered off to work on his video game skills.

Rose went back to her room to take a look at her notebook again, suddenly very worried.

\--

Dave was resting in his room, laying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. The day had been boring, and his tiredness hadn't gone away even after all that sleep. He was starting to wonder if maybe he really was getting sick.

Eventually he drifted off to sleep, lacking the motivation to fight his sleepiness any longer.

What Dave didn't know was that Karkat had come to a stop as quietly as possible outside his door. He had stopped, hand on the doorknob, unsure if he should knock, or just go in, or if perhaps Dave wasn't even in there.

Karkat just stood there, going back and forth in his head, for a long time. Then he heard a scream that had him yanking the door open, sickles in hand.

Dave had just gotten to sleep when the nightmares started again. Everyone died, and it was just him and his Bro. And his Bro was hurting him, and then his Bro was dead, too. Then he started dying from the wounds he had sustained, and everyone else was alive again. He could see them bleeding out again next to him, but he couldn't get to them to help him. He knew in the back of his mind that this didn't make sense at all, but he couldn't help but get caught up in it.

Soon he was screaming, trying to get to them to help them, and next thing he knew he was being shaken awake. He jerked away, afraid for a second that it was his Bro. But instead of relief when he saw that it wasn't his Bro, his stomach just dropped at the sight of Karkat.

Karkat held onto his shoulders, ignoring his sickles, now laying useless near the door. Karkat was completely taken aback by the look of sheer terror on Dave's face, not to mention the fact that he was shaking like a leaf caught in a hailstorm.

The troll didn't know what to say, so he just hung onto Dave's shoulders, trying to calm him down and make him return to the cool-kid he normally was. A part of his mind realized that if he still wanted Dave to be his Kismesis he should want to hurt him now, while he could. But strangely he just wanted Dave to feel better, and stop looking like his world was ending.

Dave wrenched away from Karkat grasp, fumbling for his sunglasses before Karkat saw his eye-color. He shakily grabbed them and put them on his face, using them to regain some control over his face. He tried to make his face as nonchalant as possible, even if he couldn't stop shivering.

Karkat suddenly found himself pulling Dave into what the humans called a "hug". Dave was shuddering and seemed to be having trouble just breathing, and Karkat needed him to calm down. Preferably now. He really didn't want to face the new feelings of wanting to comfort Dave.

For his part, Dave tried to pull away, but Karkat was having none of that. He pulled him firmly against his shoulder, not saying anything. Dave was trying not to breathe in order to stop his sobs, but all that resulted in was him gasping for air as his body revolted. He simultaneously wanted Karkat to leave and never mention this and for Karkat to hug him tighter and not let go. He felt like he was falling apart.

Running his claws gently through Dave's hair, Karkat focused on getting Dave to at least breathe. He was mildly worried he would manage to die through self-imposed suffocation. "Dave, c'mon. Breathe, at least."

When it became clear that Dave was trying not to breathe to stop his sobs, Karkat understood. But Dave still needed to breathe. Karkat whispered, "Dave. Dave, I can already tell you're crying. It's not a big deal. But you need to breathe."

Dave took a shuddering gasp, clutching at the front of Karkat's shirt, burying his face in Karkat's shoulder and almost trying to smother himself. The claws running through hair were soothing, but Dave was tensed up, fighting himself. He didn't need to relax; he needed to stop crying and throw Karkat out of his room.

"Dave." Karkat used his hand that wasn't busy holding Dave against him to grab Dave's hair gently and force him to look at him. Dave was a shuddering mess, glasses askew, mouth in a firm line, trying to deny the tears leaking out from under his glasses.

Karkat let go of Dave's hair and removed Dave's sunglasses. Dave jerked, throwing up his hands to block his face. As he discarded the sunglasses on a table nearby, Karkat grabbed Dave's arms and pulled them away from his face. "I already know you're crying, Dave. So calm down and breathe." Dave drew in a shuddering breath, looking wide-eyed at Karkat, still fighting his break-down.

Shifting so the light hit Dave's face, Karkat examined his eyes, then jerked in surprise. He had asked Rose some time ago what were "normal" eye colors for humans, and red definitely hadn't been one of them (of course, Rose's weren't either). They were the same color as his blood. Karkat pushed that to the back of his mind. That didn't matter right now, and Dave was still wide-eyed, shuddering, and trying not to breathe.

Letting go of Dave's arms and resuming running his claws lightly through the blonde hair, Karkat insisted, "See? Now breathe. Stop trying not to breathe. I'm pretty sure you'll die if you don't breathe."

Dave let out a strangled laugh at that and let his face fall lightly against Karkat's shoulder, finally just letting himself breathe. He found that, ironically, that lessoned his sobbing, though it was still there. After a while the soothing feeling of the claws running through his hair and the arm wrapped firmly around his waist had Dave calmed down. He was completely worn out from the melt-down, feeling kind of blank and tired.

Karkat shifted, and for a moment Dave was afraid he was going to leave. (The fact that he didn't want that was an unwelcome revelation.) But Karkat simply moved so his back was resting against the wall, pulling Dave with him. "Go back to sleep," Karkat murmured. Before Dave could really think about it, he had.

Karkat took the moment in slowly, and came to the conclusion that, no, he clearly didn't want Dave as his Kismesis anymore. Which meant, what? The feelings were definitely red. Did he want him as his Moirail? No, he didn't think that was it either. Which, of course, told him he wanted him as his Matesprit, but Karkat couldn't deal with that idea just yet.

He felt Dave's even breathing and still form and wondered what had caused that break-down and when exactly Dave had started trusting him enough to fall asleep around him.

Karkat drifted off to sleep holding Dave and wondering how this had happened.

\--

Karkat stirred with the feeling that something was wrong. At first he couldn't define it, until he felt the warm body lying half-on him shudder. Blinking sleep out of his eyes he looked down at the blonde haired boy and wondered what was wrong. Then Dave jerked and made a noise that made Karkat want to stab someone. Or set Jack Noir on them. Dave sounded so vulnerable and hurt.

Like... like he was a little kid being beaten by the only one in the world he cared about. Karkat snarled, which had Dave jerking awake, too, and pulling away from Karkat, momentarily confused as to how he had gotten half on top of him.

The last dream didn't seem to have bothered him, and that made Karkat more angry than whatever dream has caused Dave's breakdown. Dave stared at him like he had lost his horns, and Karkat didn't understand why. "What?" He asked Dave.

"You're... growling." Dave replied, blinking at him.

"Yes. I do that when I'm angry."

Dave pulled back a little. "Why are you angry?"

Karkat used his arm still draped around Dave's waist to pull him back, "I'm angry at whoever caused you to have that kind of nightmare often enough that you wake up from it completely unfazed."

Dave looked surprised. He hadn't expected anyone to put two and two together so quickly. Even if he had just been witness to a meltdown. "What makes you think it was someone, and what makes you think I've had nightmares before. I'm a Strider."

"Because I saw your scars earlier, and the way you melted down, and the way you woke up from your nightmare just now. It's obvious when you think about it. And yes, you are. Which makes me think it was Bro Strider who hurt you." The way Dave flinched was more confirmation than Karkat ever expected to get.

"Of course not. Now you're just inventing crazy stories."

"Mhm." He pushed Dave's head back onto his shoulder and resumed running his fingers through the blonde hair. "This is why you've been spacey and tired, isn't it?"

Dave was silent, not wanting to answer, and not wanting him to leave.

"Why don't you get some more sleep, Strider?"

"Isn't this some weird troll romance thing?" Dave deflected.

"Yes, it is." Karkat answered honestly. "Though it has to go both ways and right now we're just in Moirail territory."

"You're assuming my end of it, there."

"Strider, if you didn't at least want me to be your Moirail right now, you would be pushing me away. Maybe you wouldn't have earlier, but you would be now if you were truly so against it."

"What, so you want to be my Moirail now, huh? Didn't know you felt that way, Karkat. Though I did know no one could resist the Strider charm."

"No, I think I'm a little redder than that at the moment." He slid his fingers to the base of Dave's neck and rested his claws there. Dave shivered but didn't flinch or pull away. "I'd almost say you were, too, but I think I'll return to that idea after you feel better."

"What." Dave stated, not quite a question.

"You heard me." Karkat smirked. Dave, still resting against Karkat, could feel him growl. "And if the one who hurt you wasn't already dead I think I'd hunt him down and kill him myself."

Dave just kind of stared at him, once again unable to handle his emotions, but this time they were different emotions. "What."

"Go back to sleep. We can talk again when it's what we operate under as 'morning'."

Dave sighed, not wanting to deal with it. Unthinkingly, he pulled Karkat down with him so he could rest his head on the pillow and still cling to Karkat. Somewhat surprised, Karkat followed where he was pulled, making himself comfortable and pulling the blanket up to cover them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is short, but only because of where the natural breaks in the story are.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Also, please let me know if there are any typos.
> 
> [And I don't own Homestuck.]


	3. What Comes Next

Dave Strider stirred awake, happily surprised to find that he hadn't been awoken by a nightmare but instead simply by being rested. He opened his eyes, staring at Karkat for about five seconds before he could process everything that had occurred last night. He quickly came to the conclusion that he hadn't had nightmares after that because he felt safe. Karkat's arm draped over his waist and his presence made him calm in ways he hadn't been in a long, long time.

In that moment he didn't care what it took; he was going to make Karkat stay with him. After a second of desperately trying to figure out how to make that happen, he remembered Karkat's words "I think I'm a little redder than that", and he calmed down. He already knew his feelings were returned.

Karkat came awake all at once. Finding open, calm, red eyes right in front of his face was mildly surprising. (Though he knew that Dave probably knew that if the blonde had moved Karkat would have woken up instantly.)

Karkat sat up slightly, moving his arm away from Dave for the first time in hours, trying to gauge his reaction now that he was calmed down and clearly feeling better. "Dave?"

Unsure how to answer the question with words, Dave pulled Karkat down into a kiss that he tried to put all of his feelings into, in a way that he'd never put emotion into anything before.

Karkat smiled into the kiss and lay back down so Dave wasn't awkwardly half sitting up. Then he returned his claws to Dave's hair, having noted the night before that Dave seemed to like that.

The tension drained out of Dave, and Karkat wondered if Dave hadn't really been sure if he would respond, or if his claws in his hair really just relaxed him that much. Karkat let Dave kiss him hard, accepting the blonde's feelings, and trying to show understanding as best he could.

Eventually Dave slowed down and just kissed him lazily for a while before pulling back and just kind of laying there with a small smile. Karkat smiled back, glad he'd finally found his Matesprit, and almost laughing at the irony of him originally wanting him as his Kismesis. He was sure Dave would approve of the irony.

"We should get up eventually," Karkat murmured.

"Eh, everyone thinks I'm sick anyway."

"You're not, are you?" Karkat felt for a fever anxiously.

"No, I was just tired."

"Well from now on I'm sleeping with you, so I can make sure you actually sleep."

"Good to know, Karkat." Dave smirked a little, happy to know he was going to get what he wanted without having to ask for it.

"...You're kind of like a cat."

"What?" Dave spluttered a little bit.

Karkat smiled, still enjoying putting Dave a little off-balance, and petted Dave's hair to prove his point. Dave pushed up into it a little bit and relaxed. Then he glared at Karkat. "No. I am not a cat."

"You want me to stop, then?"

Dave just glared harder. Karkat chuckled a little bit and pulled him close, dissolving into laughter when Dave tried to push him away for laughing at him. After a moment Dave was begrudgingly laughing, too.

"Fine, fine, we can get out of bed and go be social," He said, laughing, and getting up out of his bed. He walked to his dresser and pulled out a new set of clothes, and walked to the door, awkwardly realizing they'd left the door open all night and that Karkat's sickles were on the floor.

He glanced from them to Karkat and back, trying to figure out why they were there. "I came in because I thought someone was being attacked," Karkat explained carefully.

"Ah," Dave responded, "I'm going to go shower. See you in a bit."

"Okay, I'm going back to my room to get changed." Karkat hauled himself out of the bed and left. Dave paused before closing the door after him and heading for the bathroom.

A little while later they both ended up in a room with a couple of the trolls and Rose. Everyone seemed to be eating, so Karkat and Dave both grabbed food and settled in to eat.

Rose moved so she was sitting across from Dave and asked, "How are you feeling?"

Dave stared at her for a moment, wary of her psychoanalyzing. "Fine. You?"

"I'm good." Then she lapsed into silence, staring at him in her odd way. She seemed slightly confused. "You appear to be getting over your sickness."

"Striders don't get sick." She was right though; he felt much better after a night of real, calm sleep. He glanced at Karkat, who had settled in next to him, chomping away at his food.

Rose caught the glance, and her confused look eased. "I'm glad you're feeling better. I'd like to speak to you later if that's alright."

"About what?" Dave raised an eyebrow.

"Recent behavior patterns I've noticed."

"What." Dave replied. Rose got up and walked back to Kanaya, effectively cutting off any further objections Dave might have.

After lunch the room emptied out as most of the people left in a group to go have a gaming tournament. Dave stayed, wanting to get the confrontation with Rose over as soon as possible, and Karkat stayed because he was not yet convinced Dave was completely okay.

Rose watched them walk across the room to her, steps in sync. "What." Dave asked.

"So, you're filling Karkat's flushed quadrant, then?"

Dave blinked, surprised she' already figured it out. He hadn't thought they were acting any different than usual except maybe for the fact that Karkat had sat next to him without yelling at him. "Yeah, so?"

It was Karkat's turn to jump and stare at Dave in surprise. He had half expected Dave to want to keep their relationship a secret. He was glad, though, that Dave seemed to have to qualms about people knowing their relationship.

"I just wanted to ascertain if it was okay to ask these questions in front of him. If you are so willing to claim him I will assume it is." Rose paused, giving Dave an opportunity to argue, one which he did not take. 

"You haven't been sleeping. No, that wasn't a question. Don't bother arguing."

"So." Dave almost snapped: almost, but not quite; Dave felt calmer than he had yesterday simply because of Karkat's presence, so he managed to put only a small amount of inflection into his not-question.

"Why? Are you sick? I don't actually believe you're getting sick, so don't tell me you are." Rose continued, more harshly than was her norm.

Dave took a steadying breath as flashbacks of getting screamed at flashed through his mind. Rose's words, while he was sure they were meant only to rile him up enough he might answer, were starting off a little too similarly to the way the speeches about how Dave was useless started.

Karkat and Rose both noticed. Karkat moved to try to calm Dave down without doing so obviously, knowing Dave wouldn't appreciate Rose realizing his moment of weakness. Rose's eyes narrowed as she looked at her brother steadily. "Dave, I have a theory. I'm sorry I appear to have caused flashbacks, but I wanted to be decently sure before I brought it up. If I'm wrong you'll probably be very angry with me. Though, if I'm right you'll probably still be upset."

Dave stared at her, unhappy with the direction the conversation was taking. He didn't know what was going on yet, but he also didn't seem to have any power to stop it or control it in any way. That bothered him. He was used to at least having control over the conversation.

Conversations are normally very easy to steer one direction or another. Deflection is easy, and distraction came as second nature to Dave. He knew how to re-direct and confuse. However, when it came to Rose, he wondered if she had radar for his self-defense mechanisms. She plowed right through them like he wasn't even trying.

Rose had paused. For a moment Dave wondered why she wasn't continuing, but then he realized that he was shaking slightly. He shut his eyes behind his sunglasses, mentally swearing. Of course she would notice the smallest twitches.

He forced himself to stop shaking and not fidget. Only then did she continue. "For a while I wondered if it was just after effects of the game. For all intents and purposes we were in a type of war, so it's rather surprising Post Traumatic Stress Disorder hasn't shown up in more of us. You have always been overly careful around me, as well, so I couldn't be sure. After a time I dismissed it, figuring you would rather I leave you alone to heal your own way, and you hadn't shown any signs of getting worse."

"Then, the other day, John came to me, worried about you. He said he'd seen you, practically dead on your feet, and walked you back to your room. Apparently you couldn't even walk in a straight line. He was very concerned for your well-being. When I questioned him more extensively he admitted that he had noticed you slipping up a lot recently. Now, normally I would dismiss that as you relaxing with everyone. But that's not how you work, is it Dave? You haven't gotten to the point where it's a trust issue with other people. You still blame yourself too much. You think it's your fault, not the people around you."

Dave stared at her. "I don't blame myself for anything. What are you talking about Rose? Is this all some deliberate ruse to get attention from your dear brother?" He suppressed a wince at the knowledge that his slip up with John had not gone unnoticed. He also spared a moment to wonder how he hadn't realized he hadn't been walking in a straight line.

Nope, Rose wasn't going to let this newest distraction change the course of the conversation at all. "Dave. You've been having nightmares haven't you?"

"Striders don't have nightmares. Have you? The game was kind of horrible. I wouldn't blame you if you needed to talk or something, Rose."

That distraction wasn't going to float either. "Your Bro abused you didn't he?"

Dave grasped at the edge of the table, going hot and cold all over. This couldn't be happening. "Of course not. Where are you getting this insane theory?" Maybe it was, after all... that. Hearing it out loud made it all too real. He couldn't handle it. The world started going in and out of focus, and he had to concentrate to stay upright.

Karkat grabbed Dave's shoulders, steadying him. Dave didn't appear to have noticed he was swaying, still gripping the table in a white-knuckled grip.

"Dave?" Rose asked tentatively. "Didn't he hit you? Didn't he leave scars all over you? Didn't he yell and yell and make you feel like everything you'd ever done was wrong and you just weren't good enough?"

Dave shuddered, and for half a second Karkat wondered if he should intervene. He hadn't said anything so far because he trusted Rose to do the right thing. He knew that in the end this would probably help Dave. Probably. "Dave?" He whispered.

He didn't appear to have heard him. "No!" He was yelling, more like Karkat than ever before. "Bro was only teaching me a lesson like any good parent! He almost never hurt me! And he only yelled when I did something wrong!"

"Which was when, all the time?" Rose seemed to be deliberately needling him.

"No! I just messed up a lot. That's not his fault! I just wasn't trying hard enough!"

"Then what about the scars?"

Dave didn't even register that she shouldn't have known about those. Nor did he register that if he denied them she wouldn't really be able to prove her point without trying to undress him. She'd never seen any of them, he knew. None of that registered in his thoughts though. "Those are from strife! Just strife! Nothing else! And we were training! That's what happens when you're a swordsman! You get scars!"

"The fact that you are so adamant about them just being for strife leads me to believe you are trying to lie." It was a statement, but Rose's icy calm had Dave grasping after his own calm and failing to find it. "Karkat, forgive me if you feel this is overstepping the bounds of your relationship, but have you asked him what his nightmares are about? I'm relatively sure you must know about them since he seems relaxed around you and more rested today than he has been for a long while."

Karkat paused, looking at Dave who was shaking and apparently trying to fight off dizziness. "I haven't asked."

Rose looked at him in mild surprise, "So you know, then. You figured it out, huh? I suppose that shouldn't surprise me considering our last conversation on the matter. Your sudden interest in why someone our age would have extensive scarring was helpful. Though, no, Dave, he didn't tell me anything."

The last part seemed to be in response to Dave whipping his head up to stare at Karkat. After he heard it, though, the tension ran out of him, and he leaned on Karkat, mostly collapsing into him. Karkat eased him down into a chair and sat next to him, arm awkwardly around his shoulders.

"Fine," Dave mumbled, "Fine."

Rose looked at him expectantly, but when he didn't continue she prompted, "Dave?"

Dave still didn't respond. "Did your Bro hit you for seemingly no reason?"

"Rarely." Dad's voice had a little fight to it, though there was no tension in his slumped body.

"Did Bro yell and scream and make you feel like nothing?"

"Yes."

"Did Bro being quiet scare you more than the yelling?"

"Yes."

"Did Bro make you feel like nothing you could do would be enough?"

"Yes."

"And did he cut you up so badly mentally you just kept shutting down, waiting for him to start hitting you?"

Dave shuddered, "Yes."

Did Bro slice you up during strife sessions like no parent should ever hurt their child?"

"He wasn't my parent."

"Did he?" No deflection tactics worked on Rose.

"Yes."

"Then I'd call that abuse, Dave."

"No." Dave didn't give any explanation but then again no one expected him to.

"Dave," Rose walked forward, laying her hand on his shoulder. "It's not something you had control over. We don't think less of you, and neither will the others if you ever choose to tell them. I won't. I'm here for you, and I just want you to face it so you can begin to deal with it."

When Dave put his hand on top of hers, rather than pushing her away, she relaxed. Karkat wondered how much stress this conversation had put on her, tip-toeing around trigger words and a mine-field of violent emotions that Dave had kept locked up for a long time. 

"It's a thing, but it's in the past. Now, you and Karkat are a thing, too." When Dave looked at her with a baffled laugh, she winked. "I'll leave you to your Matesprit now. And I'll let your Moirail, who is currently standing outside the door worrying, know that you'll be okay and are in good hands."

Dave started laughing a slightly hysterical laugh, "Thanks, Rose."

"You have a Moirail?" Karkat asked. Dave seemed to find that hilarious, too, though the troll wasn't really sure why.

"Yes," Dave choked out, "Hey, Terezi, get in here!"

Terezi slipped in the room a moment later. The door showed Rose walking away for a second as it swung shut. She kept walking all the way to Kanaya's room, seeking a good, calm conversation.

The blind troll pointed her eyes in Karkat and Dave's direction and walked over. "Dave?"

"So, we'll make it officially a thing, then. We both knew it was a thing, but now everyone else can know it's a thing, too, Terezi. We're Moirails, and nobody can say anything about the cool-kid and the blind-girl being all friendly and things." Dave slowly stopped his hysterical laughter and sat up a little straighter.

Terezi smiled at him, relaxed now. 

"We can hang out with the mayor and red chalk and leave everyone to wonder if we have a three-way Moirail thing going on. It'll be so scandalous." Dave ran on for a little while, both his Matesprit and Moirail considerably happier now that Dave seemed to be closer to what was normal for him.

Terezi smiled her toothy grin and replied, "I'm going to go destroy John at video games, so you can be alone with Karkat." Looking at Karkat she said pointedly, "Maybe in Dave's room." Then she cackled as Karkat's face burned a bright red.

Dave leaned on him tiredly and replied, "Go! You must not keep John waiting for his beat-down! He needs to be beaten soundly at least once a day." Terezi smirked and left, making a big show of being in a hurry.

Seconds after the door had swung shut Dave was pulling Karkat down into a desperate, if tired, kiss. Karkat kissed back, glad things had moved back onto familiar (through his rom-coms) grounds. Half a second later his tongue was in Dave's mouth and his claws in Dave's hair, Dave's arms around Karkat's neck.

After a while Karkat pulled back wondering if Terezi knew this would be Dave's reaction and that was why she suggested they move to his room or if she was just messing with him because she could. Both were just as likely.

"Hey," he pulled back, "let's follow Terezi's advice." He knew better than to ask if he was okay, though he wanted to. He also knew that if he wasn't okay his Moirail wouldn't have left willingly, so he shouldn't worry.

Dave, now half on his lap, didn't seem inclined to move though. "I'm tired." The blonde's head rested on his shoulder, relaxed. Karkat stopped raking his fingers through Dave's hair, thinking it was a good opportunity to find out if that really relaxed Dave that much.

"Fine." Dave got up and started walking to his room, obviously expecting Karkat to follow.

The troll snickered, and Dave looked at him, completely confused. Karkat shook his head, catching up to him. Together they walked to Dave's room, a little slower than usual, but then again Dave looked exhausted.

The door was open, and Dave wondered if open doors was going to be a thing between him and Karkat. He kind of hoped it wasn't. After they'd both gotten inside he turned around, pulling Karkat with him, to close the door and pin the troll against it.

Karkat really had no objections to this and went along with Dave's kissing quite happily.

When Dave's lips slipped from Karkat's to kiss along the troll's jaw and down his neck, however, Karkat wondered if Dave shouldn't really be asleep instead of doing this. "Dave." Dave kept kissing his neck, haphazardly, pushing himself flush against Karkat. Wrapping his arms around the blonde, Karkat asked, "Hey, don't you need sleep?"

Dave, catching Karkat a little off-guard, shooshed him, opening his mouth a little to suck on the portion of the troll's neck he had been kissing. Karkat inhaled sharply, arms wrapping around Dave's waist. After a moment he remembered to run his fingers through Dave's hair. Dave pressed against him harder, pushing him into the door.

Karkat tilted his head to the side, enjoying Dave's hot mouth running along the tendons in his neck. Dave found his pulse and sucked on it lightly, smirking as Karkat's breathing hitched. The blonde brought his hands to the hem of Karkat's shirt, tugging questioningly. Karkat pushed him back slightly, much to Dave's disappointment. When he pulled his shirt off and pulled Dave back, though, Dave just grinned widely, an expression Karkat hadn't thought he'd ever see on the Strider's face.

Dave ran his fingers over Karkat's chest, dragging kisses along the troll's collarbone. Karkat just enjoyed it for a minute, then he brought his hands to the edge of Dave's shirt, not sure how he would respond.

Dave froze, and Karkat was immediately apologetic. "Dave, you don't need to. I'm sorry if I'm pushing you. Dave. Dave, hey. Hey?" 

Slowly, Dave pulled away, worrying Karkat. Then he reached up and took his shades off, not meeting Karkat's eyes. Karkat, surprised, just stared as Dave shuddered a little and yanked his shirt off over his head and threw it blindly behind him. Karkat couldn't help but stare at the scars that he'd only gotten a glimpse of before.

When he noticed the slight shaking, however, he murmured, "I don't mind, Dave, so don't freak out. You're still beautiful." And he started forward, needing to use his mouth to prove his point. He kissed from Dave's mouth, down his throat, to his chest, tracing the scars idly, fascinated by the small noises Dave was trying to smother. "Mmm, you don't need to hide it. There's no one else around to hear," moving up so he was a hair's breadth away from Dave's lips, "and I want to hear every noise you make."

Karkat had to hastily wrap an arm around Dave, the blonde's legs deciding that they didn't need the responsibility of holding him up anymore. Dave clutched at him, slightly flushed. Karkat smirked when he noticed that the red eyes in front of him where dilated. "Hmm, Strider? Want to move this to the bed?" Dave jerked on his arm, trying to hurry to follow his suggestion.

Chuckling, Karkat complied, pulling them both to the bed and depositing Dave on top of it. He took a moment to admire the sight before he climbed on top of the blonde, pushing him flat on the bed, and kissing open-mouthed down his neck. Kissing his way down Dave's body, Karkat let his fingers wander over scars, a small part of his mind wondering how far they went.

Dave jerked and whimpered when Karkat mouthed his nipple. Smirking, Karkat continued playing with it, reveling in getting Dave to break through his cool-kid facade. Dave's hands made their way into Karkat's hair, pulling lightly whenever Karkat found an especially sensitive spot. Karkat was quickly discovering that despite being covered in scars Dave was extremely sensitive. He wondered about it, mouth along Dave's ribs, enjoying the small noises Dave made. That was, until Dave's fingers brushed his horns. He shuddered, gasping slightly.

There was a pause in which Dave tried to figure out what had caused that. When he did, however, he fingers went to work, stroking along the horns, making Karkat shudder and grasp at the sheets beside Dave. The troll went back to work though, dragging his tongue down Dave's body until he reached the waistband of the human's pants. There he paused, looking up at Dave.

The blonde didn't seem to have noticed his exact position. He was too busy fondling Karkat's horns and enjoying the feeling of being touched without it hurting. When Karkat put a hand on Dave's pants, though, obviously pausing for approval, Dave's hand clamped over Karkat's hand of its own accord. He tried to loosen his vice-grip when Karkat looked at him apologetically.

"We don't have to go any farther. It just seemed like..." He trailed off when he saw Dave shaking his head.

"No, it's not," Dave hesitated, shuddering for an entirely different reason. "It's not that I don't want to....."

Karkat stared at him, confused. "Dave?"

"Uh, just," Dave struggled to articulate what was happening.

"Flashback?" Karkat asked, stilling. 

Dave nodded, gasping slightly. "Sort of."

"C'mon, Dave, tell me what's happening."

"Just. Once." Dave said haltingly, "When I was young."

"Hmm?" Karkat hummed reassuringly, rubbing along Dave's stomach and watching his muscles slowly relax and then tense again.

"Bro caught be when I was first trying to... learn my body." It all came out in a rush, and Karkat sucked in a breath, trying to push away the implications that statement could have. "He was angry. Really angry." Dave stopped, leaving the rest hanging.

Karkat leaned down, running his mouth along the edge of Dave's pants, gratified when Dave gasped and grabbed at the troll's hair. "Well this is me, and I want to touch you, Dave." A pause. Heavy breathing. "May I?"

Another pause. "Yeah." A shudder.

Then Karkat was undoing Dave's pants and pulling them down and off of him. He flinched when he saw the scars running all the way down, but quickly put his mouth to work, distracting Dave effectively. He quickly turned Dave into a shuddering, moaning mess, working his mouth over the skin near his arousal and along the inside of his thigh.

"Karkat, hurry up," Dave whined, trying to pull Karkat's mouth where he wanted it. Karkat chuckled and just kept sucking on his hip bones. "Nng." A shiver went down Karkat's spine. He hadn't expected Dave to be so vocal, but he was enjoying it. He was immensely glad Dave hadn't tried to put his impassive mask back on.

When Dave's fingers found his horns again, though, he was more than happy to take Dave into his mouth, making small noises around it and trying not to choke. He kept one had on Dave's hips to keep him still and experimented, finding what made Dave squirm and shudder. He took his time, building Dave up slowly, until he wasn't coherent anymore, simply moaning and caressing Karkat's horns.

Karkat reached down, pausing long enough Dave could comprehend what was happening, and rested a finger against his entrance, asking, "Dave?"

"Yes." was gasped out, "God, yes, please."

Smirking, Karkat pulled his finger back, putting it in his mouth instead of Dave. Dave looked at him, whimpering at the sight. After a moment Karkat pulled his finger out of his mouth and carefully pushed it into Dave. Dave's head fell back, him pushing down on it and fumbling at his bedside table. He found some lotion and threw it at Karkat, who just barely caught it before it hit him in the head. This set off a string of very Karkat-like curses, to which Dave just smirked, provoking him like always.

Karkat pulled his finger out, coating three fingers with the lotion and slipping two to Dave's entrance, raising an eyebrow at him. Dave smirked back in challenge. Karkat slid both in, and Dave repeated his earlier motion of thrusting down on them, barely wincing at the pain.

Karkat used his other hand to spread Dave's legs more, and once he had settled in between them, he grabbed Dave's arousal, distracting him as he spread his fingers.

Dave made a small pained noise and let himself relax against the bed. It was a show of trust that Karkat noticed, even though he didn't really need confirmation of their Matespritship at this point.

Slipping in the third finger while Dave was distracted he went exploring with them. When Dave's whole body tensed up and he arched off the bed, Karkat smirked a little, proud of himself.

"Fuck, nng, what the fuck," Dave rambled, "God. Karkat. Uh...."

Karkat chuckled, stroking Dave and thrusting his fingers in and out slowly.

"Karkat lose your pants already for ahhh the love of nng." Dave shut up, thrusting into Karkat's fingers.

Karkat pulled both his hands away long enough to follow Dave's order, smiling a smile full of teeth. The whine Dave let out at the loss making Karkat smirk. Then he was lined up with Dave's entrance, leaning over him so his face was near Dave's. He had a question mark practically drawn on his face, "Is this okay, Dave?"

"Yes, for the love of god."

"Are you sure?"

"Just do it." Dave gasped out, pulling Karkat down by the horns, so he could kiss him. Karkat groaned and thrust in slowly, trying not to move too much. Dave groaned but didn't move.

Once he was all the way in Karkat moved his junk a little experimentally. Trolls had more control of it than humans did. Just enough that if he concentrated he could find... "Fuck!" that spot. He smiled at Dave's exclamation, rubbing against that spot inside him gently while he waited for Dave to adjust.

Dave was clinging to him and rolling his hips in far less time that Karkat thought he would be. He figured it probably had to do with Dave's high tolerance for pain, and started thrusting in and out slowly. Too slowly for Dave's tastes, who tried to thrust against him to speed him up.

It didn't work.

He kept going nice and slow, wrapping his hand around Dave's dick and stroking it at the same pace, painfully slow.

Dave was completely incoherent, just making noises and clinging to Karkat and rubbing his horns when he could.

After a while Karkat couldn't take it anymore and he switched from slow to hard and fast like the flip of a switch. Dave groaned appreciatively. The beat was steady, something that he, as both a DJ and the Knight of Time, appreciated, his body practically humming happily even though his brain couldn't keep up.

"Dave," Karkat groaned into Dave's neck, sounding desperate for once. It set Dave off, shuddering and tensing, which set Karkat off, going a little bit more before collapsing on Dave.

Dave wrapped his arms around Karkat, shifting him to the side so all his weight wasn't on top of him, and promptly went to sleep. After a moment to catch his breath, Karkat looked at Dave and started laughing when he saw that Dave was asleep. He tried to smother his laughter so as to not wake him up, but he really couldn't help it.

After a while he calmed down and fell asleep too, his hand in Dave's hair.

\--

Dave still woke up screaming occasionally, but now when it happened and he was shaking and crying he just reached out for Karkat, who was always, always there. Dave found that if he just took one day at a time he was okay. Eventually he thought he might even not have nightmares anymore

Of course, he had forgotten about meeting their ancestors again.

Just when they were nearing the new session, John brought it up, and it all came crashing down on Dave. He had no idea how to react to the idea, so he just shoved it aside, figuring he'd face it when they actually met them. The day was steadily getting closer though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I don't own Homestuck.]


	4. Meeting Dirk

The meteor touched down, by which of course Dave meant that it crashed, shattering glass and other fragile things in the meteor. Rose called a meeting to tell them they had landed (as if she actually thought someone could miss all of that).

"Really, Rose? I thought the force of my awesomeness was what shattered everything." Dave quipped, not looking forward to having to clean any of the mess up.

"That's not the point." Rose brushed him off. "The point is that we are here, and we should be running into the post-scratch versions our guardians soon."

John was immediately jumping around the room in his excitement. "Let's go! Guys, let's go!" He rushed toward the exit to the meteor (the gaping hole in the wall from impact), and everyone else followed at a slightly more sedate pace.

Dave's first reaction was to wince away from the sun, forgetting how bright it was after so long on the meteor. Even with his shades it seemed ridiculously bright.

Then he saw them. Four small figures standing a ways away from the meteor. He couldn't really see them well, as far away as they were. He figured they probably hadn't wanted to get crushed so they stayed a ways away. John was running full-tilt toward them enthusiastically. Everyone was picking up on his energy, and even Dave found himself quickening his step, Karkat by his side.

By the time Karkat and Dave reached the four figures John had already hugged them all and was bouncing up and down in front of who he figured was Jake. It was startling to see them so young. Dave had quite a shock when he looked at Dirk. Time seemed to slow down as they looked at each other.

Dave would have made a quip about cheesy movie moments that he was sure Egderp would like, but he couldn't quite bring himself to. He didn't want to acknowledge the moment just yet. He couldn't process it.

Dirk walked towards him, stopping a few feet in front of him. "Bro?"

It was a question, not a statement, and Dave looked at him, wondering how different their relationship was in the post-scratch world where he was apparently the older Bro.

The rest of them seemed to be giving the two Striders space, though Dave wasn't quite sure why. The trolls were milling about the other humans who were talking to their respective post-scratch guardians.

"Dirk." The name seemed weird on his lips, but he made himself say it. He was shaking, just slightly, and after a moment's scrutiny he saw that Dirk was, too. A horrified thought flashed through his mind; had he treated Dirk the way his Bro had treated him? Instinctively he reached for Dirk, as if he could wipe that possibility from every timeline ever.

"No." The fact that Dirk seemed to know the question he was silently asking him terrified him. Yet he had said no. If the answer was no, how did he know the question.

"Bro," Dirk's voice was hushed, responding to Dave's arm falling listlessly back to his side, "I don't know how it was before the reset, but for us..." The rest of his sentence was snuffed out as John practically tackled him, asking questions about if he was still Strider-cool with the Strider-poker-face and the Strider-charm and so on and so forth.

Karkat reappeared at Dave's side, not sure what to think when Dave let out a breath of laughter at the whole situation. He let himself be dragged along to what turned into a massive party. He wasn't really sure why they were partying instead of trying to finish the game, but he went along with it.

There were games and pizza and laughing and they all learned a lot about each other. They all learned how the people they'd met today didn't quite fit expectations. In some ways it was a relief. Meeting someone who was exactly like someone who had died, yet wasn't that person, would be confusing. They wouldn't have the same memories, but you would constantly want them to.

After the party everyone pretty much passed out in the meteor, where the trolls had eventually dragged everyone. They wanted some familiarity before the end of the game, apparently.

Dave jerked awake a couple hours later, suddenly remembering that Dirk hadn't finished his sentence and that he really, really needed to know. He needed to know how Dirk could know what he was asking if his post-scratch self hadn't hurt Dirk. How was that a thing. He needed to know.

He got up and wandered over to where he thought Dirk had been when he passed out. He wasn't there, so Dave went looking. When he didn't appear to be in the room with everyone else he went exploring. He knew the meteor well, but Dirk didn't, so he probably hadn't gone deeper into the meteor in the middle of the night. He headed outside, looking for blonde hair or pointy shades.

Eventually he made the annoyingly difficult climb to the roof, and sure enough Dirk was there. He looked like he had been waiting for Dave. "Always the roof with you. Even when there aren't any bloody stairs to it." Dave commented.

Dirk looked at him, and replied, "I warned you about the stairs, Bro, I warned you."

It didn't exactly work in context, but Dave knew what he meant, and he almost started laughing. He kept his poker-face though.

"What I was saying earlier," Dirk continued, "was that for us, my Bro raised me. It was just the two of us in this dingy little apartment." Dave nodded; that much was the same. "The reason we were alone, though, was because our parents are in jail."

Dave raised an eyebrow, suddenly painfully aware of the fact that he had no idea where his parents were or why his Bro was the one raising him. "Why?"

"Well, they used to," Dirk paused, letting the undertones of what he was about to say sink in, "hurt Bro before I was born. When I was born, or he found me, or whatever, he called child-protective services and adopted me." There was a question in the eyes that Dave could see even through both their shades, asking what it was like for Dave.

"We were also alone. Bro never told me why, though all the evidence I have points in the direction of the story being much the same. Except..." he wasn't sure how to say it. He wondered if maybe he shouldn't. His Bro was Dirk pre-scratch, and he knew how much the mere thought of him being like that post-scratch ripped him up inside. "Except I was the younger one." What looked like relief flashed through Dirk's eyes.

There wasn't really anything else to say, so Dave just sat back and watched the sky.

"Bro?" Dirk seemed hesitant, something Dave couldn't remember his Bro ever being.

Dave looked at him, waiting for him to continue. "I know you aren't... the same." His pain was too obvious in his voice. "Can I tell you something I didn't get a chance to tell Bro?"

There wasn't a whole lot to read between the lines there, which was odd. "Sup, little man?"

"I mean, it's not important." Dave almost flinched. Dirk sounded so young. "Jake and I are a thing."

Dave had to blink blankly at him before his brain could catch up. Oh, that was probably a thing. "Karkat and I are a thing." Dirk's eyes got really big behind his glasses, and Dave let out a breath of laughter to show that he was serious, and it wasn't even a thing. Dirk understood.

"I should've known that when I saw how he trailed after you." Dirk poked at him.

"I should've noticed how love-sick you look whenever he's in a hundred meter radius of you." Dave poked back.

They both ended up falling asleep on the roof, much to everyone else's confusion. The next morning when everyone woke up the rest of them went frantically searching everywhere for the two Striders, but were unable to find them. When the two Strider's finally made an appearance Karkat demanded to know where they had been, but both gave noncommittal responses.

~The End~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiii! So this is the end of this story. I hope you liked it! :)
> 
> Also, a side-note: this IS a little AU, mostly because I wrote this a while back before some more recent updates, and I got a little mixed up on details. The rest of the AU-ness is just me bending it to make my story work, haha....
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck. [I kind of don't think I'd do as good of a job writing it as Hussie does. XD]

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) I hope you liked it!
> 
> Please let me know what you thought. (Though please don't be too harsh.) :)
> 
> [And I don't own Homestuck.]


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